Free Republic

Just days after launching a new political action committee, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden will join Republican officials and donors at a weekend retreat hosted by former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Biden will be interviewed by Romney during a Friday evening event in Park City, Utah, at the invitation-only summit, according to a Biden spokesman and participants briefed on the schedule. The speaker lineup for what is traditionally a gathering of Romney allies is packed with high-profile Republicans, among them House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Ryan was Romney’s running mate in 2012....

"Any perceived benefits from the designation of huge landscape monuments need to be weighed against the impacts suffered by those who have traditionally used the lands," Kathleen Clarke, the former Bureau of Land Management director and now head of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, told a House Natural Resources subcommittee. "Landscapes don't disappear, but jobs and artifacts do." {snip} The testimony comes as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, as ordered by President Donald Trump, is reviewing the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase designations and other national monuments named in the past 21 years. Zinke must report back recommendations by...

...“Those concerns turned out to be unfounded, I turned out to be wrong in that regard,” Lee said, adding that he still sees Trump’s stated dedication to returning power to the American people “as a central vision of his presidency.” When asked whether turbulence in the White House gets in the way of Congress achieving their legislative agenda, Lee said “with great certainty” Congress has themselves to blame for any inaction. “If you have Republican members of Congress claiming that it's the president's fault somehow that we're not passing Obamacare repeal, that we're not passing tax reform yet, I think...

Utahns are consulting the U.S. Constitution more than usual because of Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s resignation. A vacancy in the House of Representatives is unique among all federal offices because it must be filled by an election. No appointments are permitted for membership in what is often called “The People’s House.” Federal judges are chosen by the president, with Senate confirmation of the appointment. The same is true for Cabinet officers. Governors may make appointments to fill Senate vacancies. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich infamously tried to auction the Senate seat vacated when Barack Obama was elected president; that’s why Blagojevich...

ALPINE — Utah will lose perhaps its most visible member of Congress when Rep. Jason Chaffetz leaves office before his fifth term ends to pursue a job in the private sector. The conservative Republican announced Thursday that he would resign effective June 30, saying it's time for him and his wife, Julie, to move on from that part of their lives.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is reportedly telling House Republicans he is planning to take on a role on Fox News. The Utah Republican, who announced in April he would not seek reelection in 2018, may have plans to take on a "substantial role" on air at Fox News, Washingtonian reported. The report cited two GOP lawmakers and four senior House Republican aides who have knowledge of Chaffetz's plans. The role could start as early as July, according to the publication. “Let’s just say that when Jason told us he was headed to Fox, no one was surprised,” one senior House...

Shortly after the EPA triggered the release, to obscure and limit its own liability, the EPA created the Bonita Peak Mining District—around the Gold King Mine—and made the Superfund designation. Past EPA studies found the area did not merit inclusion on the National Priorities List. ... EPA’s Attempt to Bury its Colorado Gold Mine Disaster is Illegal. ... Mountain States Legal Foundation for its clients ... advised the three-judge panel that the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund statute), designated what it erroneously called the Bonita Peak...

The Trump administration is launching its four-month review of 27 large national monuments designated since 1996 under the Antiquities Act, including two controversial monuments in Utah. That review formally kicks off this weekend with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's arrival in Utah to investigate Bears Ears National Monument, designated by President Barack Obama just a few weeks before he left office, and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. At the urging of Utah's political leaders, President Donald Trump ordered the review April 26, when he called out Bears Ears as a "land grab" that should not have happened.

The Utah Supreme Court has ruled police are allowed to ask for a passenger's identification and run a background check on them during a traffic stop — even without suspecting criminal activity.In a 5-0 decision this week, justices overturned a 2014 district court ruling that argued such police actions were "beyond the scope of a routine traffic stop." The ruling stems from a case involving Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Jeremy Horne, who stopped a car for an improper lane change. Horne collected IDs and ran a background check on the driver and the passenger, George Matthew Martinez Jr.

Boulder - Remember that unsuccessful attempt in the legislature to toughen penalties for vandalizing oil and gas equipment? Child’s play. It turns out the author of a letter to the editor in Boulder’s Daily Camera that got a national media mention last week — for appearing to endorse outright violence against fracking operations — is the author of a pending statewide ballot issue to hike Colorado’s severance tax on oil and gas production. Reached by phone today, Andrew O’Connor, of Lafayette, unapologetically reiterated his hardline stance ... “I wouldn’t have a problem with a sniper shooting one of the workers”...

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) is taking a leave of absence from Congress to undergo "immediate" foot surgery and is expected to return in mid-May. Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, shared a photo to his Instagram on Wednesday showing an x-ray of a previously repaired broken foot with 14 screws and a metal plate in it, Politico reported. The lawmaker said doctors are now recommending that he have the hardware removed or "be at risk for serious infection." Chaffetz originally sustained the injury falling off a ladder nearly 12 years ago.

SALT LAKE CITY — Former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin would beat Sen. Orrin Hatch in a head-to-head matchup for the U.S. Senate, a new poll shows. The Centrist Project, which is recruiting candidates to run for Senate and state legislatures in 2018, commissioned the survey to gauge Utahns' opinions on several issues and the viability of an independent candidate in the upcoming Senate race. The poll by JMC Analytics found 33 percent of residents would vote for McMullin, 29 percent for Hatch and 11 percent for an unnamed Democrat if the election were held today. Another 10 percent favored...

After years of creating headaches for the oil-and-gas industry, the greater sage grouse is now standing in the way of renewable energy. The U.S. District Court in Portland on Wednesday killed a major wind-energy project slated for southeast Oregon over concerns about its impact on a local sage grouse population in a victory for environmental groups, which had fought the proposal for years. The 104-megawatt project, which would have spread up to 70 wind turbines and a transmission line across 10,500 acres in rural Harney County, was decried by environmentalists as an “industrial scale wind development” that would have disrupted...

Owes nearly $670,000 for failed presidential bid Evan McMullin Up To His #NeverTrump Eyeballs in Campaign Debt Posted by Fuzzy Slippers    Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 8:30am Owes nearly $670,000 for failed presidential bid Evan McMullin exploded onto the 2016 presidential election scene as an Independent with a message of conservative values and Reagan-esque ideals.  He didn’t make a blip on the radar, and following President Trump’s election has turned his sour grapes into a #NeverTrump box of sickly-sweet wine that reeks of desperation and, worse, of self-aggrandizement.To top off his head-spinning fall from grace, McMullin owes nearly...

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who announced he will not seek re-election in 2018, now says he might leave Congress even before his term ends, it was reported Thursday. Chaffetz, who heads the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Wall Street Journal that he’s still mulling over the timing of when he would leave Washington, DC. ​”​My future plans are not yet finalized but I haven’t ruled out the possibility of leaving early,” ​the Utah Republican told the newspaper. “In the meantime, I still have a job to do and I have no plans to take my foot off...

U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of a House committee with broad investigative powers, said on Thursday that it is possible he could leave office before his term finishes next year, The Wall Street Journal reported. "My future plans are not yet finalized, but I haven't ruled out the possibility of leaving early," Chaffetz told the Journal a day after the Utah congressman announced he would not run for re-election in 2018. Chaffetz could not be reached immediately for comment. Utah state officials have begun making plans for a special election to replace Chaffetz in his heavily Republican district,...

Former presidential candidate Evan McMullin was one of several Utah Republicans who were eyeing a congressional run in 2018 after the surprise retirement announcement of Rep. Jason Chaffetz. McMullin confirmed in a Thursday morning email to the Washington Examiner that he had been weighing a challenge to either Sen. Orrin Hatch or Chaffetz in the 2018 Republican primary, and indicated that the congressman's decision to retire could make a run for the 3rd district appealing.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who stunned Washington with an announcement that he is not running for reelection, might not even finish his remaining term. Chaffetz told KSL News Radio’s Doug Wright that he may not finish out his full term through 2018. But he said he’s still debating the decision amid uncertainty over how Utah would establish a process to replace him early. "I will continue to weigh the options, but I might depart early," Chaffetz told the Utah radio host on Thursday.

The time-frame was 2011 – the Tea Party had just crushed a republican Utah senator named Bob Bennett a year earlier. Massive push-back against growth of government including TARP, Auto Bailouts and now ObamaCare was fueling the grassroots movement; the Professional Republican Party hierarchy, the GOPe, was furious; the Tea Party represented a risk to the establishment republican authority. GOPe corrupt Senate leadership (McConnell, Portman, Cornyn, Corker, Blunt, Burr, Crapo et al) were assembling all resources to kill the Tea Party uprising. They reached out to like-minded colleague John Boehner, Speaker of the House for support. Hatch must be protected...

It seems that one of the arguments put forward by the #NeverTrump movement was that then candidate Trump stiffed vendors. Pot, meet kettle: